It seems not many people on VGC know that Hopper wrote (together with Peter Fonda) and directed one of the most influential Hollywood movies ever created - Easy Rider. A classic and the beginning of New Holllywood.
Colors is another movie he directed which I think was really good and stood the test of time.
Other than that I always thought he was a selfish asshole and not really better than the Old Hollywood guys he pretended to rebell against some decades ago.
Drugs, alcohol, beating up the women he was with who loved and admired him http://cayle-chernin.blogspot.com/2010/04/dennis-hopper-remembered-elegy-for.html , defaming a colleague on a nationwide TV show who he had kicked out of Easy Rider 3 decades before http://edition.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/News/9905/11/showbuzz/#story3 (btw: you know this guy - Rip Torn - as Smith's/Jones' boss Agent Z from the Men in Black movies).
I saw a TV documentary about Hopper just a few days ago on Fench/German culture TV channel "arte" and it didn't really change my mind. It seems he never regretted anything and even as an old man he was still fascinated by his own dark side.
And of course his last wife (#4) was more than 3 decades younger than him and they were just about to divorce when he died. Like I said, he was not different than the Old Hollywood guys.
R.I.P. Mr. Hopper - influential hollywood icon, mediocre actor, successful photogragher and painter, professional asshole.
